


Stonefish

by walkwithursus



Series: Barbossa & Jack [1]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alcohol, Barbossa is Hungry, Bargaining, Dirty Talk, Drinking, Eating, Explicit Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Male/Male Experience, First Time, Food, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Older Man/Younger Man, Sparbossa, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 03:17:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14323374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkwithursus/pseuds/walkwithursus
Summary: Hector Barbossa has been on the account since before Jack Sparrow were so much as a twinkle in his father's eye. And with twenty-odd years experience as both a sailor and a pirate, he is more than keen to fulfill the various roles that Captain Jack's youth and inexperience create onboard the Black Pearl.But when an injury at sea greatly increases his already overburdened workload, Barbossa begins to wonder whether Jack's reliance borders on exploitation.Worse still, when Jack propositions him for an indecent service, Barbossa must come to terms with the fact that he finds a twisted pleasure in the young captain's abuse.R18+ ONLY Please.Explicit Sexual Content.





	Stonefish

As first mate on board the Black Pearl, Hector Barbossa had a long and seemingly endless list of duties. 

In between watchstanding and goods distribution, Barbossa also served as chief of cargo, crew supervisor, trainer of sword and pistol, and deliverer of punishment. Should they encounter a rival vessel it was Barbossa who lead the boarding party and commanded the men, and in the event their efforts be rewarded with treasure, it was he who divied it up between the crew. At the end of the day, Barbossa was a patient and long-suffering man whose work was never done. 

Behind such encumbrance was the relative youth and inexperience of the Pearl’s command. Captain in name only, Jack Sparrow’s primary responsibility on board the ship was that of navigator, and it was exclusively in this area that the man showed any sort of ability. The vast majority of his other assignments had been impishly schlepped into the more capable hands of his first mate, and for that, Barbossa was almost grateful. His knowledge and expertise as a sailor far outpaced Jack’s own, and it was only thanks to the man's tricky little compass that he could chart a better course. Still, there were times when Jack’s reliance toed the line of exploitation. Particularly when Barbossa was forced to neglect his duties in favor of attending to the captain's personal affairs.

Jack’s latest inconvenience was an injury acquired at sea. A terrible storm had come upon the Pearl within the last fortnight, tearing at her sails and plugging her hull with icy dark water. She struck fast and fierce, and by the time Jack called for all hands the hour was late and the ship was drowning. Barbossa reported to the quarterdeck in time to witness an enormous black wave slap Jack on the back, knocking him from the helm in a gush of seawater down toward the main mast, where the rope had slipped free of its knot. Barbossa had snatched the rotating wheel and yanked her hard around, all the while watching as the captain scrambled through knee-high water across the weather deck for the staircase. In front of Jack, the rope whipped back and forth through the air, caught in the wind. Barbossa had watched as the young man made a daring lunge for it, grasped it in both hands and heaved. 

The friction of the fibrous braid had ripped the glove from his wrist, torn his palms open, and flayed the flesh from his fingers. The Pearl had no surgeon aboard, and so the care of the wound had initially gone to the cook, who was about as knowledgeable as a powder monkey when it came to the healing arts. The assignment had been a grave mistake. Within three days Jack took to bed with a fever. Only then had Barbossa replaced the cook’s negligence with his own watchful eye and steady hand, and it was under his care that the captain made marked improvement. In a week's time, the angry red skin of Jack's hands turned a healthy pink and began to itch. 

Half a month on and all traces of the fever had disappeared. Jack’s hands were still badly damaged, but he was now able to make brief appearances on deck to oversee the crew, though he was yet unable to lift heavy objects. Despite the extra burden Jack’s hors de combat presented, Barbossa encouraged him to stay out of the way. Though his intentions were undoubtedly honorable, the first mate was wont to spend an afternoon belaying orders and reorganizing the crew every time the captain took a five minute stroll of the weather deck. A well-rested man healed faster, he reasoned, and with Jack in his cabin Barbossa did not have to wrestle with him for full control of the ship. 

Over the two week period of Jack's recovery, Barbossa slept little and ate less. Rote memorization kept the crew in hand and the Pearl afloat as he drifted about in a fugue state. And though Barbossa longed for nothing more than the opportunity to command the Pearl, to truly be her captain, he had never hoped to assume those duties without the reprieve of his responsibilities as first mate. It would appear Barbossa had greatly underestimated exactly how many duties Captain Jack Sparrow had on board the ship until forced to perform them himself. 

They were fifteen days out from the storm now. Barbossa had been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and had not eaten in half that time. Almost as though he sensed this, Jack chose that evening to invite him to dine in the captain's cabin. One of the seaman tracked Barbossa down with the summons just as he began his evening watch, and he spent the rest of his time at the helm contemplating the significance of the invitation and ignoring the incessant growl in his belly. 

Considering he took the majority of his meals with the man, Barbossa was neither surprised nor flattered. But the formality of the invitation was puzzling. Eating together had become something of a precedent by this point, an unspoken agreement that they’d entered into further back than Barbossa cared to remember. The sudden decorum was an unpredicted change, to say the least, and Barbossa found himself thinking on it until the moment he stood outside the cabin door after retiring from his four-eight. 

Barbossa knocked and listened for the answering summons from within. He thought he heard it, a faint shout of welcome, and so turned the handle. His boots crossed the threshold into warmth and light, a pleasant change from the sleeting black wind that whipped the sails on deck, and he allowed the door to shut on his back to keep out the chill and spray of the sea. 

“Lock it, would you?” 

Jack’s voice reached his ears from somewhere out of sight. Barbossa ignored a mounting sense of trepidation and flipped the lock before venturing further into the cabin, soft boot falls over wooden floorboards. He swept a wary eye around in search of the captain, taking in the laden desk in the center of the room and the cracked door leading to the sleeping quarters. A handful of candles cast flickering shadows across the walls, and the ship groaned ominously as a large wave rolled beneath the deck. Such quiet made for an unusual reception in the captain’s normally lively cabin, and contributed marginally to the first mate’s growing sense of unease. Jack spoke again, and Barbossa followed the sound of his tenor toward the dining area, where the table was set. 

“I’ve been walked in on twice today. Can you believe it? _Twice._ Mark my words, Hector, the next creature to barge in here uninvited is walking the plank.” Jack’s messy, braided head popped out from under the dining table, and he held aloft a silver dinner fork. “ _Aha!_ Found you.”

“I seem to have misinterpreted the formality of your invitation, Jack,” Barbossa said. “Had I known we were to be eatin’ off the floor I’d’ve worn me good hat.” 

“That is your good hat,” Jack groused. The captain was stripped to his shirtsleeves, thin, holey white linen draped loose over a leanly muscled frame. The leather baldric that normally crossed his chest was saliently missing, and its absence gave Barbossa the strong impression of vulnerability, as though the man were standing stark naked in front of him. Jack collapsed into his chair and thrust the fork onto the serviette beside his plate, and Barbossa took that opportunity to appraise the spread. Admittedly, he was disappointed. Everything remotely fresh had been consumed within their first few weeks at sea, and all that remained to them now was either pickled, dried or rotten. His eyes passed over the salty _boucan_ and bone soup to land on an unopened bottle of wine resting conspicuously beside the candelabra centerpiece. 

So Jack meant to bribe him, or in some way soften him up with food and drink. Barbossa might have laughed if he weren’t already dreading whatever ludicrous proposal the captain aimed to present to him, one he’d apparently found important enough to break out a bottle of fine wine for. Though if this were the extent of his efforts, Barbossa did not have much to fear. The first mate was a hard man to win over at the best of times, and a few swallows of wine would hardly score Jack any points. At the very least he could have slaughtered a chicken. 

As though reading his mind, the young captain lifted the cover off a silver serving tray to reveal a skinny, spit-roasted bird. Barbossa’s smile died on his lips. 

Perhaps the boy had him figured after all. 

“Well?” Jack prompted, sweeping a thickly bandaged hand over the feast. “Don’t just stand there. Have a seat.”

The legs of the chair squealed across the floorboards as Barbossa dragged it out, and he sat with his arms tightly crossed. Jack made a spectacle of himself pouring the wine. Most of it ended up in the cups, but a fair amount soaked into Jack's napkin and puddled on the tabletop. Normally a man would pour one-handed, but Jack clasped the bottle between two and did his best. 

After a tense minute Barbossa accepted the wine goblet Jack offered him. The red liquid sloshed over the sides and dribbled down his fingers as Jack initiated a sloppy toast.

“And to what exactly do we raise our glasses?” Barbossa inquired, narrowing his eyes. Jack aimed a sly smile across the table and twisted the corner of his mustache. 

“To friendship,” Jack toasted, and he sucked down half the wine in one pull. Barbossa lifted his arm and took a single sip for courtesy’s sake before replacing the goblet beside his plate. 

“Chicken?” 

Jack offered the tray and Barbossa accepted, and the next few minutes were filled with the sound of scraping knives and chewing mouths and the occasional satisfied groan as hungry bellies expanded. Jack abandoned his silverware quickly in favor of his bandaged hands, and though he struggled to bring food to his mouth he did not ask for help. The flesh disappeared off the bird and before long the two men were divvying up the bones for what little marrow they possessed. Barbossa ended up with more than his fair share as Jack clutched his distended waistline and insisted they not go to waste. A poorly disguised attempt to vie for the first mate’s favor, but the chicken was good enough that Barbossa could not find it within himself to care. 

When at last he’d eaten his fill Barbossa sat back and drained the remaining dregs of wine from his goblet. Jack seemed to shift ever so slightly forward, as though he’d been waiting for this moment, and Barbossa decided to beat him to the punch by saying, “So.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “So?” 

“Let’s hear it, Jack.”

“Hear what?”

“Whatever it is that’s got ye so keen to wine and dine me this evenin’,” Barbossa said, and he flicked an impatient hand over the remains of their meal. 

Jack looked contrite. “Come now, Hector. Can’t a captain invite his first mate for a meal anymore without said first mate being suspicious of said captain’s ulterior motivations?” 

Barbossa fixed him with a level gaze. “Aye, but ye and I both know that generosity of spirit ain’t exactly in your nature.” 

“Is that so?” Jack picked at a tooth with the edge of his thumbnail and sighed dolefully. “And here I thought I’d put this whole outfit together purely out of the goodness of my heart. Things have been awful maudlin ‘round here ever since that storm, you know. Thought we could both do with a bit of cheering up.”

Considering Barbossa had picked up the majority of the slack that Jack’s indisposition had brought about, he failed to see why the captain should need any sort of cheering. “Oh really? And tell me, Jack, how exactly have things been maudlin for _you?_ ” 

Jack’s eyebrows knit together. “You think it’s been easy for me, sitting back and letting you lot do all the work?”

Barbossa set his jaw. “I do.”

The captain appraised him for a moment, as though he had half a mind to discipline his first mate for insubordination. Then he snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Well, allow me to inform you otherwise. It’s not been all playtime and fun for poor laid up Jack, no sir. You never notice how many things you do what require the use of your hands ‘till you’ve lost ‘em. No work, no play, no _pleasure._ ” Jack drawled the word in a slow, emphatic sort of way, like molasses on the tongue. Barbossa gave him a stern look that went largely ignored as Jack continued.

“That’s right, none at all. And I’ll have you know, Hector, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of a woman in weeks. Longer still since I actually _had one,_ if you get my meaning. I tell you, it wouldn’t be so bad if I could take care of things meself, but as you’re aware, my hands are bloody useless.” Jack held them up, two big bandaged mitts soaked in salve and puss. The cloth was dirtier than usual, stained with grease and yellow chicken fat from Jack's poor attempts to feed himself. Barbossa had half a mind to change the dressings now, to get it over with and take his leave of the cabin before Jack could continue with his vulgar nonsense. 

But Jack was in a singular mood, and a devious one at that judging by the lowered tone of his voice. Had he the use of his fingers they might have walked themselves around the curve of his plate to pair with the smoldering look in his eye. “It’s a pity, really," Jack continued, giving a theatrical sigh. "We’re days yet from the nearest port. I fear I shall have to suffer longer still, lest some generous soul find it in their heart to take pity on their poor... _injured_... captain.”

Had he a mouthful of wine Barbossa might have spat it out. Instead he blinked, dry swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to process the words the man had just spoken from across the dining table. This was it, then, the proposition Jack had been fixing to spring upon him after he was fed and drunk. It was not enough that Barbossa fulfill the role of ‘acting captain’ while Jack recovered from his injuries, not enough that he clean and dress those wounds each night. Due to those loathsome abrasions, it now appeared the first mate would be expected to service his captain as well. Barbossa almost felt he should have expected such a demand, right alongside the order to start cutting the boy’s meat and spooning it into his mouth for him. Jack wore a sinful, cheeky little smirk as he watched him across the table, the likes of which Barbossa would enjoy backhanding off his smart mouth were he any other sailor. But he wasn’t, and Barbossa wouldn’t, because despite the insolence, the sheer bloody arrogance of such a request he was deeply, shamefully tempted. 

And Jack knew it. Barbossa could see it in his eyes, the way he did not doubt for even a second if his first mate would rise to the occasion. All these years he thought he’d kept himself in check around the boy, buckled down whatever strange desire it was that he’d felt for him. But it was painfully clear that Jack knew, had perhaps always known, and was fixing to use it to his advantage, as though the first mate were his collared bitch and Jack his master.

The seconds were ticking by, and Jack cocked his head to one side as the leer on his face stretched ever wider. The overwhelming majority of Barbossa’s consciousness told him to quit the room, to slam the door both physically and metaphorically on Jack and his salacious proposition. But there was a smaller, self-indulgent voice that held him back. What was pride compared to the satisfaction of possessing the captain’s body, if only for one night? What was honor and self-respect compared to the pleasure of bringing the boy to his climax? And why did he have to sacrifice one for the other? 

Barbossa leaned forward ever so slightly in his chair, eyes narrowed. “And what sort of generosity might a man expect in return for such a favor?” 

Jack perked up and waved a hopeful hand across the table. “Wine?” 

Barbossa chuckled and reached for his cup. “Jack,” he said huskily as he poured himself another full glass. “Surely ye’re familiar with the concept of an equal exchange. This meal, it were a fine spread, to be certain. But it weren’t unlike anything I’ve had before, and ye and I both know I’m hardly the charitable sort.” 

“Can’t blame a man for trying, though,” Jack said, not put-out in the slightest, and he raised his drink into the air. _“Take what you can.”_

 _“Give nothing back.”_ Barbossa completed the phrase and took a long, slow sip of the wine. He swished it around in his mouth before swallowing, aware of Jack’s eyes on him, fraught with expectation. He was a presumptuous little devil, that was for certain. Barbossa had half a mind to reject him just for the pleasure of kicking him down a notch. 

But he wouldn’t. Not while there remained other options in this strange and dangerous game. There was greater satisfaction to be had if he played his cards right, and of the two of them, Barbossa had been dealt the better hand. After all, it was Jack who was in need of his services, Jack whose hands were useless and whose itch needed scratching. Barbossa's hands were strong, clean, and in working order, and that was the chip with which he would strike his bargain. 

With a calculating smile Barbossa stood and made to leave, tossing his napkin from his lap and onto the blue china dinner plate. “Will that be all, then, Cap’n?” 

Jack’s coy smile vanished and was replaced by a bewildered frown. He sat up straight in his chair and spread his hands in a placating gesture, as though to stay Barbossa’s step. “Not so fast, Hector. I believe we’ve yet to reach an agreement.”

Barbossa shrugged his shoulders. “I fail to see how such an agreement would be of any benefit to me,” he said neutrally. He had never had the boy’s natural poker face, but he aimed to keep his features blank as they were scrutinized. 

Jack’s tone was persuasive. “No benefit to you? Come now, Hector, don't be rash. You walk out that door now, and you'll be making the biggest mistake of your life." The cogs were turning under his dreaded mop, and Barbossa thought he could detect a hint of desperation beneath the steadfast self-assurance. "Now listen up. Are you familiar with the phrase _‘Happy Wife, Happy Life?’_ No? Allow me to explain. Don't give me that look, just listen. There's no such phrase that pertains to a captain and his ship, at least not that I'm aware of. But I, being a master of improvisation, feel that its implications are highly relevant to our predicament and so I’ve re-purposed it. Just substitute wife with captain, and life with ship. Happy captain, happy ship. Savvy?” 

Barbossa nodded to demonstrate he understood, but kept his thoughts to himself as Jack continued. “So, you see then why it would be in your best interest to listen to me. Don't want to upset the balance of the ship, right?" Jack stretched a hand out horizontally and tilted it back and forth to demonstrate his point. The motion was strangely mesmerizing. "No, we don't. We want to keep her nice and steady, right? Keep those waters calm... steady as she goes, nice and peaceful... But!" Jack jabbed his index finger into the air and Barbossa flinched. "The question is, how do we do it? Well, that's where you come in, Mr. No-Charity-Equal-Exchange-What-Have-You. You wanna get something out of this, and I respect that. So here’s what I propose. Name your terms, and keep them reasonable, so that we might strike a bargain that serves us both.”

“My terms.” Barbossa echoed, and he reached up to stroke his fingers thoughtfully through his beard. Short of the Pearl and the captaincy Barbossa wanted for nothing, save a break from his unwilling role as Jack’s nursemaid. That, and perhaps the intimate companionship of the much younger man, an indulgence he had staunchly denied himself these many years. 

“I’ll buy you a woman. _Two_ women, as soon as we dock,” Jack bartered. Barbossa crooked an eyebrow and Jack flung his arms up into the air. “Alright, _three women!_ All at once, and I won’t take no for an answer.” 

Barbossa laughed and shook his head, taking a meandering step away from the table. “Nay, I’ve got me own coin for such things. And do recall, Jack, t’were an equal exchange I be after.” 

Jack ruminated on the implications of said equality before displaying his bandaged hands once again. “Couldn’t even if I wanted, to, mate.” 

Barbossa nodded sagely. If it weren’t for the sorry state of Jack’s hands there would never have been a need for this agreement in the first place, so Barbossa could hardly fault him there. But there were other ways Jack could repay him with his body besides a quick pull-off. That smart mouth had to be good for a suck, at least, though the moment he thought it Barbossa realized how far-fetched the notion was. As Jack had said, the terms of their negotiation need be reasonable.

“Aye, that be true. But time heals all wounds, lad, and there may come a day such as this, when we be far from port and I’ve a mind for some pleasurable company,” Barbossa trailed off as Jack pulled a face. He took a few heavy steps until he’d reached the back of the captain’s chair, where he leaned down to speak into the boy’s ear. “When that time be upon us, I expect the favor of my borrowed hand returned. What say ye to that, Jack?” 

Not one to be lorded over, Jack sprang to his feet and spun around to face his first mate. Barbossa towered head and shoulders over him, and he smirked down into the boy’s upturned face, watching as his jaw worked back and forth in fervent consideration. 

After a long moment Jack spoke, and there was a duplicitous twinkle in his eye as he said, “I say you’ve got yourself a deal. You do me this favor, and in return you get my promise that at some future date of your choosing, I’ll pay it back in kind.” He shoved out his injured hand for a shake and then withdrew it, closing his fingers around the grubby cloth over his palms with a simpering, apologetic smile. “Ah! Almost forgot. Will you take my word for it?” 

Barbossa rolled his eyes, grasped the captain by his bandaged hand and shook. Jack winced and yelped dramatically, but Barbossa knew the integrity of his own handiwork. He’d wrapped him up thick enough, and the boy’s cry was less of pain and more that of indignation at being handled without permission. He squeezed his fingers tighter.

“We have an accord,” Barbossa said, and he relinquished his grip on Jack’s hand. Jack shook his wrist out as a wide grin split his face, revealing a single gold tooth.

“Excellent!” He said jovially, bouncing up on the balls of his feet. “And now that that’s settled --” Jack made a spectacle of situating himself back in front of his dining chair before dropping into it. Barbossa stood still and blinked as Jack squirmed in the seat, knocking his knees askance and maneuvering his sprawled body into what was probably meant to be a suggestive pose. Once satisfied with his position, he turned his face up and grinned wolfishly at his first mate. 

“Ready when you are.”

Barbossa spared him a look of disgust before turning to stomp his way into the darkened captain’s bunk, where he sat expectantly on the edge of the bed. Jack appeared in the doorway seconds later and folded his arms. 

“In here?” He asked, incredulous.

“What? Were ye hopin’ to see me crawl beneath the table like some wretched drab?” Jack opened his mouth to comment and Barbossa waved him down. “Don’t answer that. Now c’mere, ‘fore I change me mind.” 

Jack obeyed without hesitation, and in a moment the bunk sagged with both their weights. His body was warm and close, and Barbossa could hear the blood pounding in his ears the way it did during battle, as his old heart fluttered like a much younger man’s. Curse Jack for his impudence, and for whatever it was that made an old sea dog feel like a bashful lad of eighteen again. The company he paid for never set his pulse to racing, and Barbossa was grudged to recognize that this response was unique to Jack alone. 

Though he would do well to remember that this was a business exchange, a man’s agreement. To treat it as anything else would be folly, and Barbossa knew better by now than to relinquish so much as an inch of leverage to the boy, who would just as soon take a yard. Whatever shameful ache he’d been nursing for Jack these many years was best kept hidden if he wanted to maintain any sort of dignity. So he would service his captain if it pleased him, and if Barbossa gleaned some satisfaction in return there was no need for Jack to know it. 

The yellow candlelight from the main cabin barely lit the sleeping quarters, and Barbossa had to rely on touch alone to locate Jack in the dark. He reached out and felt for his shoulder first, a safe, familiar place, where he’d slapped and squeezed the man in friendship many a time. He squeezed it now before venturing lower, along the rough collar of Jack’s open shirt and across his hairless chest, over the sash at his waist until his fingers brushed against the warmth of his lap. Jack was hard already, a thick, swollen shape straining against the confines of his trousers. Barbossa ran the heel of one hand across the thin material and let Jack’s prick slide loose in his grasp to the sound of a deep, appreciative hum. 

Circumstances permitting Barbossa would have done it again, stroked and teased him through the fabric just to see if he liked it, if the sound was one of encouragement. But Barbossa did not dare provoke a rebuke from the young captain, or risk revealing the more personal motivations behind his exploration, the lust he kept carefully in check for the boy even now with his cock in hand. One more slow grind of his palm and Barbossa took to thumbing open the button of Jack’s trousers. Jack shimmied his hips and Barbossa tugged until the pants were bunched around his thighs. 

Barbossa’s eyes were adjusting now. He could make out the nuances in Jack’s expression, the impatience of his parted lips and the sultry desire of his tongue as it slid out to wet them. It was a heady, intoxicating sight, the sort of sluttish face he’d imagined the captain might wear when he was taking his pleasure with a woman. Or in rarer imaginings still, it was the sort of expression he’d hoped Jack might wear should he find himself pinned beneath the heavier body of his first mate.

Barbossa shifted closer to him in the darkness and Jack mirrored the movement, dragging his bare arse across the bed until their thighs touched. Barbossa leaned into his body, breathed in the strong, male scent of his skin and felt the compelling urge to kiss Jack, to grasp him by his throat and lay claim to his lips until he was gasping for breath. But he dared not. Even if Jack were amenable to such a thing, there was a line the old man dared not cross, and in his experience, intimacies of that nature were best left to lovers.

Instead he turned his attention to that part of Jack which needed it most. The captain was well formed, if a bit small, though he imagined that with such a skinny body it wouldn’t take much to appear well endowed. Barbossa ran his thumb along the underside of Jack’s prick and felt him twitch in response. Jack rocked his hips back and forth across Barbossa’s loose, taunting fingers, and after a few moments of ineffectual grinding Barbossa took pity on him and closed his fingers around the base of his cock. Jack shuddered. 

“Too rough?” Barbossa asked, instantly conscious of the chapped skin of his hands. 

Jack huffed a laugh and rutted against him, a slow thrust that rubbed the velvet-soft flesh of his prick across the scars of Barbossa’s palm. “I’ve had worse,” he said.

No man’s hands could compare to the soft, laborless touch of a whore, and Barbossa’s made for an especially poor imitation. Knowing this, he dared not even try. Instead he gripped Jack firmly as he would himself, a hard squeeze that wrenched a filthy curse from between the younger’s parted lips, and he stroked to make quick work of it, the dirty dash common to a sailor who’d found themselves alone below deck for more than a minute. 

Jack was over-sensitive, or perhaps just used to a slower hand. There was no need for haste when one was afforded privacy, and Barbossa imagined that he could take all the time in the world pleasuring himself while holed up in the captain’s cabin. The steady jerk of Barbossa’s fist soon had him squirming, eyes pinched closed and brows pulled together, and after a few minutes he fixed his bandaged fingers to the collar of the first mate’s jacket and yanked him closer. Barbossa moved into him easily, felt the warm puffs of Jack’s breath near his open mouth, and turned his face away. 

He half expected Jack to taunt him, to whisper some sort of foul abuse into his exposed ear that would send the blood rushing to his ruddy cheeks. But the man was pleasurably distracted, groaning rough in his throat and breathing harsh through his nose. Jack’s legs jerked once, twice, and Barbossa instinctively slowed to delay his inevitable end. The brief respite allowed Jack to catch his breath, and he finally spoke in between hitching breaths. 

“Is this how you do it yourself? Fast and hard?” He didn’t answer and so Jack continued, “You must chafe yourself raw.”

Barbossa scowled and squeezed his hand around the base of him. “Belay that talk or I’ll leave ye to finish yourself.” 

Jack laughed breathlessly at the threat. “No, you won’t,” he said. “You’re enjoying this as much as I am.” 

Barbossa spluttered incoherently as Jack grinned. He had given no such indication. If anything, he had behaved quite the opposite, as though the entire ordeal were a chore to be rid of quickly and efficiently. Before he could think of a proper response he felt movement in the dark, and a sudden pressure against his thigh that slid up to his groin. Jack’s fingertips peeked out from under the bandages to nudge his stiff prick through the breeches, and Barbossa froze in shocked surprise.

“You gonna do something about this, mate?” Jack whispered. 

Barbossa snapped his gawking mouth shut and pushed Jack’s hand away. “And what exactly would ye have me do?” He snarled, flushed with shame.

Jack ghosted his fingertips up and down the length of Barbossa’s thigh and hummed in thought. “The way I see it, you’ve got two options. Walk out of here at half-mast and pray no one hears you writhing about in your hammock tonight as you recall what you’ve done to me...” Jack squeezed him above the knee, a light and ineffectual pressure due to the restriction of his bandaging. “Or you could take care of it now.”

Barbossa’s gut clenched at the mere suggestion of such perversion. It was one thing to service the captain, to pleasure him with no expectation of release in return, but another entirely to stroke himself off while he did it. “And ye’d find this permissible?” Barbossa growled skeptically. 

“Consider it my repayment,” Jack replied, and he scooted closer over the bed until his voice was a rough whisper against the first mate’s ear. “You get me off, you get yourself off, we forget about my other half of the bargain, we’re square. Savvy?” 

Barbossa hesitated. 

Trust Jack to weasel his way out of a bargain only just begun. Though he knew better than to expect any real follow through on Jack’s behalf, lording the possibility of a future encounter over his head held a certain appeal for Barbossa, and a part of him had been looking forward to watching the captain’s anxiety mount over the coming months. Unfortunately, the draw was not nearly so powerful as the insistent pressure in in his loins. 

With a grunt of agreement Barbossa stripped the leather gauntlet from his left wrist and cast it aside. Deft fingers went to his breeches and unlaced them, and after a short moment he had himself firmly in hand. Jack watched him through heavily lidded eyes, and Barbossa longed to chastise him, to demand he look elsewhere for shame. But there was a certain thrill in possessing the obscenity of his dark gaze. Barbossa shifted, spread his legs and leaned back so as to allow Jack the full view of his groin, heavy balls covered in dark curls and a thick, stiff cock. Jack whimpered, a jealous, lustful sound as Barbossa slowly stroked a hand from base to tip, glowing with pride. 

“What devil did you deal with to get that behemoth?” Jack demanded.

Barbossa chuckled. “Devil? Nay, I daresay it be a blessing.” 

Jack snorted and opened his mouth to say something else, but the next moment Barbossa wrapped his free hand around the captain’s forgotten manhood and tugged, nearly smothering it completely in his massive grip. Barbossa set a slower, smoother pace for the both of them, the same lax speed with either hand, and Jack moaned for it, tossing his head back and thrusting his hips in time with the stroke of Barbossa’s fist. 

_“Yes,”_ he ground out. “Just like that. _Fuck,_ that’s good mate, keep going. Faster now.” Barbossa felt his spine tingle pleasurably at Jack’s words and the way he said them, loud and without restraint. He’d figured Jack for a noisy one, given his apparent fondness for the sound of his own voice in proper conversation, but Barbossa hadn’t ever stopped to consider just how loud he could possibly be.

“Shhh. Hush now, or we’ll be heard,” Barbossa hissed. The captain seemed to register the command on some level and held his breath, but the silence lasted no more than a minute before he was begging again in a desperate, babbling groan. 

“For the love of God, _don’t stop,_ you filthy bastard, _don’t you dare stop now,_ ” Jack ordered ruthlessly, crude as any whore. Barbossa shushed him again but Jack only moaned louder over his demands for silence, panting like a beast in heat. Barbossa cast a fervent glance toward one of the many bullet holes littering the wooden slats of the cabin and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. How Jack could completely disregard discretion at a time like this was beyond him, but despite the prospect of discovery, the thought of the crew hearing Jack call out for him was enough to swell Barbossa’s prick and bring him to his edge. 

There was a thin sheen of sweat on Jack’s skin. It beaded on his wrinkled brow and around the bristles above his upper lip. Barbossa gave into his pleas and increased the speed of his stroke, and soon the boy was reduced to a chanting mess, mumbling the same basic phrases over and over. “Please, mate, fuck me, _please,_ I’m _so close,_ don’t stop.” 

Barbossa breathed hard through his nose, unwilling to debase himself as low as Jack by crying out, but tempted to huff and carry on just the same. _Fuck me,_ Jack was begging, and Barbossa wanted to interpret that literally, to grab the boy, flip him face down, stuff him full and take him from behind. Jack was so wanting he wouldn’t question it, would bare his lust without complaint and take his seed just as willingly as he bore his stroking now. 

Barbossa was an inch from acting on the impulse, from snatching his shuddering shoulders and forcing him down when Jack’s whole body went rigid from head to toe. His prick was swollen, pulsing, and with a final triumphant squeeze Barbossa brought him to his end, coaxing him through his climax with a firm, obliging hand. Jack bucked and groaned and whimpered, and Barbossa was surprised to hear his Christian name, _Hector,_ spill forth like an invocation from between his lips. 

Barbossa’s fingers were soon covered in the slick of Jack’s release. The moment Jack’s body stilled he withdrew his coated hand and brought it to his own prick. He thrust into his fingers, slippery and hot, and allowed the sensation of the young captain’s hazy, hungry eyes on his cock to bring him to completion. New warmth flooded his hand and eased the friction of his stroke, while deep, rhythmic contractions washed over him like ocean waves. Barbossa finally allowed himself to moan the boy’s name, gruff and wanting in the back of his throat. 

Afterwards, he was aware of Jack’s weight against him, a thin, heaving shoulder leant up beside his own. They caught their breath in companionable silence, and in time Barbossa’s thundering pulse quieted to a steady, even beat. His body was worn down to the bone. It was a fight not to close his eyes and allow sleep to claim him then and there, with the young captain drowsing by his side. 

Jack was the first to recover, youth that he was. The weight of his head lifted from Barbossa’s shoulder as he sat up and stretched, and he reached over to the bureau to pick up a grubby handkerchief. He mopped at the drying semen on his shirt tail and thighs. Once done, he flicked it to Barbossa before collapsing backwards in an explosive puff of air. Jack wriggled on the bunk, yanked his britches up and buttoned himself back inside them. 

Barbossa made a face at the soiled scrap of linen that had landed on his sleeve. He tossed it aside and instead snatched up the captain’s blanket. He cleaned his hand on one corner of it, wiping off each finger individually before bringing it to his groin. Once he was passably dry he tucked himself away and glanced over one shoulder to where Jack reclined on the bunk.

Jack stared back gloatingly, baring his teeth in a wide grin.

“Wipe that smirk off your face!” Barbossa growled out. 

“What smirk?” Jack asked. “Who’s smirking?” 

If the boy were not his captain, Barbossa might have hit him, smacked him on the leg or clouted his ear for such insolence. But Jack’s station commanded more respect than that, and so Barbossa grit his teeth and took a steadying breath before saying, “We don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. D’ye understand?” 

Jack rolled his eyes. “Aye, and it’s a good thing you’ve said as much, because my next move was to nip off to the crow’s nest and announce it to the whole crew.” 

“Ye best hope they don’t know already. With the way ye were carryin’ on I expect a few might’ve heard.” 

“You worry too much,” Jack said simply. He fluffed the pillow under his neck with clumsy fingers and settled against it with a yawn. His eyes fluttered closed.

“Oh, no ye don’t. Don’t fall asleep on me yet,” Barbossa said. “We’ve still got to change your bandages. They’re filthy.” 

Jack pretended not to hear him, and so Barbossa stood up and retrieved the medical kit from the main cabin. By the time he returned the captain had curled up into a ball facing away from the door. Barbossa sat back down on the edge of the bed, where he opened the bag and began removing the necessary supplies; a roll of bandaging, a jar of salve and a bottle of alcohol. He poured a generous amount of alcohol into a cupped palm before slapping his hands together and rubbing it into his skin. The braised knuckles on his hands stung smartly, but it was a bearable pain compared to that which Jack was about to experience. 

Jack opened one eye as Barbossa nudged his shoulder, and his face was soft with exhaustion. Barbossa felt a curiously tender stirring in his chest as he rolled the boy over and sighed. “Sit up for me, there’s a good lad.”

Jack heaved himself into a sitting position and slouched over his crossed legs. “Don’t know why we need to keep changing the bandages every damn day.”

“‘Cause I say so. Now quit your bellyaching.”

Barbossa turned Jack’s hands over and used a pair of shears to slice the old bandaging from them before peeling it away. The material clung to the wound, tugged at the healing skin, and Barbossa was mindful not to tear the flesh any further. Once the injury was laid bare he unscrewed the jaw of salve and spread a generous fingerful across each of Jack’s palms, rubbing it into the raw flesh and soothing the smarting ache. 

“You’ve got big hands,” Jack remarked, and Barbossa glanced up to search his face. The pain of redressing the wounds had robbed his cheeks of their previously healthy flush, and he looked pale and alert. 

Barbossa quirked an eyebrow. “Might this observation be in reference to somethin’ else?” 

“You mean your ego?” Jack said, and Barbossa laughed. He gave the back of Jack’s hand an affectionate pat but otherwise let the comment slide. With the salve rubbed in he turned next to the bandages, rolling layer after layer over each of Jack’s wounded palms until satisfied the dressing would hold. 

“There. Don’t that feel better?”

Jack took his hands back and gave them a once-over. He flexed his fingers and shrugged. “They’ll feel better when they’re healed.” 

As Barbossa began to replace the supplies in the medicine bag, Jack peeled the shirt off his back and kicked off his boots. The mattress groaned under his body as he sagged into it once more. Out of the corner of his eye, Barbossa watched him roll to the far end, re-fluff the pillow under his neck, and tuck his arms behind his head. Once all the items were back in the bag Barbossa picked up his abandoned gauntlet, tugged it back on over his wrist, and heaved to his feet. Jack spoke up from behind him. 

“You staying?” 

Barbossa took one look at the large, empty space beside the boy and shook his head. The invitation was too vague. ‘Staying’ could imply any number of things, and Barbossa had more than enough to fret over without adding Jack’s post-coitus proclivities to the list. 

“Suit yourself,” Jack said, and he pulled the thin blanket up to his waist. His fingers landed near the patch Barbossa had wiped his hand on and he grimaced. “This is disgusting, by the way. You’re going to wash it tomorrow.”

“Yes, Sir,” Barbossa said, a portrait of respect.

Jack nodded curtly to him, and the first mate took that as his dismissal. He kept the door to the sleeping cabin cracked, replaced the medicine bag where he’d found it in the main room, and after blowing out all the candles retreated to the main deck, where he stood at the rail and looked out over the sea. 

Late that night in his hammock on the gun deck, Barbossa brought himself off in his hand to thoughts of their encounter, as Jack had predicted he would. He was left humiliated and unsatisfied, aware of the curious eyes and listening ears of the supposedly sleeping crew members swaying in their own hammocks, and wondered frustratedly what sort of lustful demon had possessed him to behave in such a way. Barbossa rarely pleasured himself at sea, preferring to wait for shore leave and the private company of women, and rarer still did he find the energy within himself to come twice in one day. 

But something had changed. 

Something sinful and depraved had crawled into his heart and died there, charging him with a covetous rot, an incessant, fetid longing for the boy-captain that he could not quell no matter how hard he tried. The putrefaction spread from there until his body coursed with it, greedy, black blood through his veins, and Barbossa yearned to force it out, to bathe in leeches or slice his wrists and let them drain, anything to rid himself of the wretched, hopeless longing he had spent years smothering into dormancy. 

But the gates to hell were opened now, and there was naught to do but accept the punishment well-deserved. If he had known this were to be his fate Barbossa might not have left the warm softness of the captain’s bunk for his hammock on the gun deck. He might have stayed and slept beside the young man, slung an arm around his middle and breathed in the scent of his hair and skin as they rested. And in the early grey hours of the morning, he might have woken the boy and pleasured him again. 

If the consequences were inevitable, as they so apparently were, Barbossa should have made the most of their night together. Instead he’d come into his own fist surrounded by a dozen other shivering men, and was left to content himself with the memory of Jack’s body pressed warm against his side as they’d caught their breath only hours before. 

Come the morning, Barbossa broke his fast with the captain. The table was simple; hardtack, dried fruit, grog, and a boiled egg each. Jack behaved as though nothing were amiss, and Barbossa followed his example even as his heart beat like a drum in his chest. At the end of the meal Barbossa stood to leave, but not before Jack disappeared and returned with his blanket balled up under one arm.

“Bet you hoped I’d forget,” Jack said with a wink as he stuffed it into the first mate’s outstretched arms. Barbossa gripped the blanket against his broad chest and stared him down mutely. Jack’s expression was inscrutable, a mask constructed with practiced ease, and Barbossa grimaced to think how readily his honest face betrayed his own emotions. Insatiable lust, frustration, and greed. He hoped in vain that Jack might not notice their hold over him, or that if he did he might cast the thought aside. But he knew better than to expect such benevolence from Jack Sparrow.

“It ain’t in your nature to be forgetting,” stated Barbossa, bowing unctuously. And as he shouldered his way out of the cabin and into the daylight, he left the following thought unsaid:

_Nor in mine._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kindly consider leaving a kudos and comment if you enjoyed!


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